Slow feature analysis-aided detection and diagnosis of incipient faults for running gear systems of high-speed trains

Abstract

Incipient faults in running gear systems corrupt the overall performance of high-speed trains, increasing the necessity of fault detection and diagnosis whose purpose is to maintain the safe and stable operation of high-speed trains. For this purpose, a novel data-driven method, that utilizes Hellinger distance and slow feature analysis, is proposed in this study. By integrating Hellinger distance into slow feature analysis, a new test statistic is defined for detecting incipient faults in running gear systems. Furthermore, the hidden Markov method is developed for performing reliable fault diagnosis tasks. The salient strengths of the proposed method lie in its satisfactory fault detectability on the one hand and the considerable robustness against high-level noises on the other hand. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed method is verified through a numerical example and a running gear system of high-speed trains under actual working conditions.

Keywords: Fault detection and diagnosis; Hellinger distance; Hidden Markov methods; Incipient faults; Running gear systems; Slow feature analysis.